July 08, 2020: As part of rationalising its syllabus in view of the COVID-19 situation, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Tuesday “completely deleted” key chapters like Democratic Rights, Food Security in India, Federalism, Citizenship and Secularism from the political science curriculum for the academic year 2020-21. 
The deletions were made on the direction of the HRD ministry which asked the CBSE to reduce the syllabus for classes 9 to 12 by 30 per cent to make up for the academic loss caused by the pandemic and the subsequent closure of schools.
“Considering the importance of learning achievement, it has been decided to rationalize syllabus up to 30 per cent by retaining the core concepts,” HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal wrote in a tweet.
“Looking at the extraordinary situation prevailing in the country and the world, #CBSE was advised to revise the curriculum and reduce course load for the students of Class 9th to 12th,” he added.
In an official statement, the CBSE said, “The Heads of Schools and Teachers may ensure that the topics that have been reduced are also explained to the students to the extent required to connect different topics. However, the reduced syllabus will not be part of the topics for Internal Assessment and year-end Board Examination.”
The board has revised the Economics and Political Science courses for grades 9 to 12.
The chapters "completely deleted" from the Class 11 Political Science syllabus include Federalism, Citizenship, Nationalism, and Secularism.
Only two units from the 'Local Government' chapter have been deleted. These include 'Why do we need Local Governments?' and 'Growth of Local Government in India'.
From the Class 12 Political Science syllabus, the board has entirely removed "Security in the Contemporary World", "Environment and Natural Resources", "Social and New Social Movements in India", and "Regional Aspirations".
From the "Planned Development" chapter, units dealing with "changing nature of India's economic development" and "Planning Commission and Five Year Plans" have been removed.
"India's Relations with its Neighbours: Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar" has been deleted for the present session from the chapter on India's Foreign Policy.
Chapters on Democratic Rights and Structure of the Indian Constitution have been removed from the Class 9 Political Science syllabus. A chapter on Food Security in India has been completely removed from the Economics syllabus.
For class 10 students, chapters on "Democracy and Diversity", "Caste, Religion and Gender", and "Challenges to Democracy" have been removed.
Among other topics, CBSE has removed demonetisation from Class 12 business studies books. There has been deletion of chapters and reduction of topics in almost all of the subjects. For science subjects, practical portions have also been reduced.